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Definitions of pH, pOH, and the pH scale. Calculating the pH of a strong acid or base solution. The relationship between acid strength and the pH of a solution.
Key points
- We can convert between
and using the following equations:
- We can convert between
and using the following equations:
- For any aqueous solution at
:
.
For every factor of
increase in concentration of , will decrease by unit, and vice versa.Both acid strength and concentration determine
and .
Introduction
In aqueous solution, an acid is defined as any species that increases the concentration of
For example, a sample of pure water at
To avoid dealing with such hairy numbers, scientists convert these concentrations to
Definitions of and
Relating and
The
The lowercase
For example, if we have a solution with
Given the
There are a few rules you want to know for calculations involving logarithms like
Relating and
The
For example, if we have a solution with
Given the
Relating and
Based on equilibrium concentrations of
This relationship can be used to convert between
Example 1: Calculating the of a strong base solution
If we use
We can find the
Step 1. Calculate the molar concentration of
Molar concentration is equal to moles of solute per liter of solution:
To calculate the molar concentration of
The concentration of
Step 2: Calculate based on the dissociation of
Because
This balanced equation tells us that every mole of
Step 3: Calculate from using Eq. 2a
Now that we know the concentration of
The
Step 4: Calculate from using Eq. 3
We can calculate
We can substitute the value of
Therefore, the
The scale: Acidic, basic, and neutral solutions
Converting
The
The following image shows a
Some important terminology to remember for aqueous solutions at
For a neutral solution,
.Acidic solutions have
.Basic solutions have
.
The lower the
Concept check: Based on the
Vinegar has a
Therefore, vinegar is more acidic than orange juice.
Example : Determining the of a diluted strong acid solution
We have
What is the
There are multiple ways to solve this problem. We will go over two different methods.
Method 1. Use properties of the log scale
Recall that
Since the original volume,
Therefore, the
Method 2. Use moles of to calculate
Step 1: Calculate moles of
We can use the
Step 2: Calculate molarity of after dilution
The molarity of the diluted solution can be calculated by using the moles of
Step 3: Calculate from
Finally, we can use Eq. 1a to calculate
Method 2 gives us the same answer as Method 1, hooray!
Relationship between and acid strength
Based on the equation for
The strength of an acid depends on the amount that the acid dissociates in solution: the stronger the acid, the higher
More generally though, both acid strength and concentration determine
Summary
- We can convert between
and using the following equations:
- We can convert between
and using the following equations:
For every factor of
increase in concentration of , will decrease by unit, and vice versa.For any aqueous solution at
:
.
- Both acid strength and concentration determine
and .
Attributions
This article was adapted from the following articles:
- “The pH Scale” from UC Davis ChemWiki, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
The modified article is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Additional References
Zumdahl, S.S., and Zumdahl S.A. (2003). Atomic Structure and Periodicity. In Chemistry (6th ed., pp. 290-94), Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Problem 1: Calculating the pH of a strong base solution at
We make
What is the
Calcium hydroxide dissociates in aqueous solution as follows:
We see that
The solution has been diluted by a factor of
We can calculate the
Since
Therefore, the
Log in Jonathan Ziesmer 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Jonathan Ziesmer's post “How does the temperature ...” How does the temperature affect the pH and pOH? • (37 votes) Matt B 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Matt B's post “At 100C the pH of water i...” At 100C the pH of water is 6.14, so higher temperature decreases the pH. The opposite is true for pOH: higher temperatures increases the pOH. (44 votes) Kaylee Wilson 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Kaylee Wilson's post “What does M stand for in ...” What does M stand for in the unit labels? • (15 votes) SRIVATHSAN B 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to SRIVATHSAN B's post “M stands for the unit of ...” M stands for the unit of Molarity of the solution. (20 votes) Amit Mukherjee 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Amit Mukherjee's post “Could someone explain the...” Could someone explain the difference between acid strength and concentration? According to me, a strong acid will fully ionise in water compared to a weak acid which will partially ionise. Therefore a strong acid will contribute more H+ ions than a weak acid. Therefore, the pH of a strong acid solution will be higher than a weak acid solution. Is this correct? • (8 votes) Matt B 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Matt B's post “Nice question!! It is imp...” Nice question!! It is important that you don't confuse the words strong and weak with the terms concentrated and dilute. At the same concentration, a weak acid will be less acidic than a strong acid. However, if you have highly concentrated weak acid (almost pure) and compare this to a very diluted strong acid (like 1 drop of HCl in a swimming pool) then the pH of the weak acid will be much more acidic than that of the strong acid. (25 votes) SRIVATHSAN B 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to SRIVATHSAN B's post “Can someone please explai...” Can someone please explain what are monoprotic and diprotic acids? Thanks. • (13 votes) Davide Ghazal 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Davide Ghazal's post “H2SO4 is a typical diprot...” H2SO4 is a typical diprotic acid (2 protons can be released in aqueous solution, however one at that time) (16 votes) areebaali160 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to areebaali160's post “how can we solve pH,pOH n...” how can we solve pH,pOH numericals without using scientific calculator during our examination? • (8 votes) Matt B 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Matt B's post “Unless you are using perf...” Unless you are using perfect numbers of base ten (e.g. 10^-7, 10^-2, etc.) there is no way to do it because you cannot easily do logarithms. If you are asked to do these calculations without a calculator, there is a good chance minimal if any extensive calculations are required. Example: log(10^-6) = -6 (7 votes) apuri 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to apuri's post “How can NaOH have a pH sc...” How can NaOH have a pH scale? How can a base add H+ ions to the solution? It adds OH- ions right? • (5 votes) Ernest Zinck 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Ernest Zinck's post “NaOH does not have a pH, ...” NaOH does not have a pH, but an aqueous solution of NaOH does. (11 votes) Michelle 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Michelle's post “How does pH+pOH= 14? Wher...” How does pH+pOH= 14? Where does the random number come in? • (3 votes) Ernest Zinck 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Ernest Zinck's post “There is no random number...” There is no random number. (4 votes) m pe 6 years agoPosted 6 years ago. Direct link to m pe's post “HiI feel like there's a ...” Hi Also I was trying to figure it out with numbers pH=-(log 10^-4) • (3 votes) RogerP 6 years agoPosted 6 years ago. Direct link to RogerP's post “This is the _power rule_ ...” This is the power rule of logs. When you have a number in front of a log term, this is the same as raising the log term to that number. For example, 4log(3) is the same as log(3^4). With pH, the number in front of the log is -1 (because pH = -log [H+]). Therefore, using the power rule, we can re-express this as pH = log ([H+]^-1). Using another log rule, we can express each side of this equation as an exponent of 10 and we get: 10^pH = 10^log ([H+]^-1). Using a definition of logs, the right hand side of this equation now just becomes [H+]^-1. So we have: 10^pH = [H+]^-1 The right hand side can be expressed as 1/[H+] giving us: 10^pH = 1/[H+] Multiplying each side by [H+] and dividing each side by 10^pH gives: [H+] = 1/10^pH which is the same as saying [H+] = 10^-pH. As an example, if the pH is 7, then [H+] = 10^-7. (3 votes) Nicolas Jaramillo 7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Nicolas Jaramillo's post “what is -log? is it a num...” what is -log? is it a number? • (2 votes) Ryan W 7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Ryan W's post “Log is a maths function, ...” Log is a maths function, it stands for logarithm. We use a log scale so we can visualise the concentration of H+ ions easier as we don't without have to deal with lots of decimal places etc. (4 votes) Aditya Shelke 6 years agoPosted 6 years ago. Direct link to Aditya Shelke's post “Is it necessary that to c...” Is it necessary that to calculate pH or pOH of a substance, we need to have the substance in aqueous physical state? What if the substance is already in aqueous state? Also, we always calculate the pH or pOH of a solid substance by dissolving it in water and find its pH or pOH according to the [H+] or [OH-] produced by it .Why we don't take in consideration the [H+] or [OH-] present in water and only take [H+] or [OH-]of the dissolved substance? Thankyou :) • (3 votes) Shlok Sanju 7 months agoPosted 7 months ago. Direct link to Shlok Sanju's post “Ok so while calculating t...” Ok so while calculating the equilibrium constant for a reaction, we consider the active masses of substances involved in the reactants and products. Since the activity of pure solids and liquids is unity, adding them to the expression will make no difference and it is usually omitted. Hope this helps! (1 vote)Want to join the conversation?
H2SO4 +H20 gives HSO4- + H+/H3O+
then,
HSO4- +H2O gives SO42- + H+/H3O+
Water contains both H⁺ and OH⁻ ions.
Adding NaOH increases the concentration of OH⁻ ions and decreases the concentration of H⁺ ions.
But there are always some H⁺ ions present, so aqueous NaOH solutions have a pH, usually between 7 and 14.
The formula comes from the ion product for water.
[H⁺][OH⁻] = 1.00 × 10⁻¹⁴
∴ pH + pOH = 14.00
I feel like there's a step missing.I'm not sure why the pH as an exponent is negative & where the minus sign comes from.I understand that the logarithm (of base 10) was changed to an exponent.What is this law of logarithms called?
pH= -log (H+)
10^-pH = (H+)
and I got 10^-pH =10^-4 and I'm not sure where to go from there to obtain the pH.Do I just cancel out the 10s & minuses that are on both sides to get a pH of 4,to cross off these I have to divide/multiply both sides by some number(s) would these numbers be 10 and multiplying the exponents by -1 to get rid of the minuses because the pH scale is usually positive numbers?
Thanks!
Is it possible to find the pH or pOH of a substance in solid physical state or even by melting it?